Thursday, November 13, 2008

"The Emperor of Ice Cream" by Wallace Stevens

A/N: I wrote this bit of blog on January 29, 2008. Particularly excellent (IMO) given the era we are currently slogging through. 

The Emperor of Ice-Cream by Wallace Stevens

Call the roller of big cigars,

The muscular one, and bid him whip

In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.

Let the wneches dawdle in such dress

As they are used to wear, and let the boys

Bring flowers in last month’s newspapes.

Let be be finale of seem.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream

 

Take from the dresser of deal,

Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet

On which she embroidered fantails once

And spread it so as to cover her face.

Her horny feet protrude, they come

To show how cold she is, and dumb.

Let the lamp affix its beam.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

 

It’s a poem that I had to read for my American literature class that has thoroughly caught my attention. I had to read it several times to get the gist of it, but when I did, I was delighted beyond reason.

Basically what this poem is discussing is a negative side of "carpe diem." Lots of poetry and stories are all over the whole "carpe diem" shebang, but not many know what it can mean, let alone give it another dimension.

Also, it’s as though the two stanzas of the poem need to be switched. In the second stanza, we are receiving and image of a woman in the viewing stage of a funeral, and with the background we have of

"Call the roller of big cigars,

The muscular one, and bid him whip

In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.

Let the wenches dawdle in such dress

As they are used to wear, and let the boys

Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers,"

the artist of the poem is saying "Through granny in the grave and get back to living life to the fullest." And yet, this "living life to the fullness" has a cold emptiness which the poem gives.

..."To show how cold she is, and dumb.

Let the lamp affix its beam."

All this dead woman has left to her life is a lamp, an artificial light, to stare at her in her coffin. The light does not give any warmth, and obviously, since she is dead, she does not give any warmth herself.

The rest of the people in the poem are celebrating life they way they think they should: rolling cigars, making dessert, buying a prostitutes’ time, etc. To them, this is living. They have no hope of life getting any better, hence, they have the attitude, "Eat and drink! For tomorrow we may die!"

A final image this poem gives us is "The Emperor of Ice-Cream." Ice cream melts. It is transient; it lasts for only a short amount of time. It is a kind of small allegory to the human life. Compared to eternity, the human life is about as permanent as a ball of ice-cream in the Sahara in the middle of July.

Really, this is a hopeless-feeling poem, and for non-Christians, it is. My favorite book of the Bible says, "Meaningless! Everything is meaningless! Like chaff in the wind, everything is meaningless!" There is a certain kind of poetry that Ecclesiastes has, but what it is basically saying that outside of Christ, we don’t have any hope for a better life anyways, like the people of "The Emperor of Ice-Cream."

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